{"id":42172,"date":"2023-10-20T15:19:16","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:19:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/merged-posse-rounds-up-5-million-for-hey-you-app-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T15:19:16","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:19:16","slug":"merged-posse-rounds-up-5-million-for-hey-you-app-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/merged-posse-rounds-up-5-million-for-hey-you-app-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"Merged Posse rounds up $5 million for Hey You app – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/div>\n

Online cafe startup Beat the Q Posse Group has closed an oversubscribed $5 million funding round following a merger at the end of last year.<\/p>\n

Shopping recommendation platform Posse merged with Beat the Q, a mobile ordering startup, which had just purchased E-Coffee Card, in October 2014.<\/p>\n

Beat the Q Posse Group now becomes \u2018Hey You\u2019, a dining application aiming to improve the payment process for cafe customers. Through the new app, users can order, pay, gain loyalty benefits, discover new places and connect with storeowners.<\/p>\n

The latest Series A funding round was led by Westpac\u2019s Reinventure and venture capital firm Exto Partners.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s all about growth\u201d<\/h3>\n

Posse founder and CEO Rebekah Campbell says the cash injection will be used to grow the new brand.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s all about growth,\u201d Campbell says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re attacking different cities and expanding.\u201d<\/p>\n

The userbase is growing 4% week-on-week, Campbell says, with 40,000 paid transactions per week and 450 participating cafes.<\/p>\n

She says the new app is a natural progression following the merger.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe looked at our vision for the company and interviewed a lot of users,\u201d Campbell says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to bring cafe owners and customers together and help store owners get to know the names and faces of customers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople go the same place every day but don\u2019t even know the name of the people there.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur vision is to make the city feel a little more human, so everywhere you go you can feel like a local.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Posse journey<\/h3>\n

Posse originally launched in 2010 as a startup focusing on the music industry, allowing bands a platform to reward dedicated fans. It was later sold to Future Music, where it still operates as futurefans.com.au.<\/p>\n

The only thing that remained was the name, as Posse relaunched in 2012 as a retail-focused app. It initially raised $1.2 million in funding and a further $1.5 million in July last year from investors.<\/p>\n

The app had a network of 50,000 shops and 110,000 shoppers, but Campbell she they struggled to monetise it, leading her to look for a partnership.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t have a great business but we did figure out how to scale,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo the best option was Beat the Q, and they had very much the same vision as I did.\u201d<\/p>\n

Transition to Hey You begins on Tuesday, with the newly designed app going live over the next couple of weeks.<\/p>\n

The plan for the rest of the year is to focus on expanding across Australia, Campbell says, as well as introducing new features that focus on dine-in customers.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Raising your<\/i> first round of capital<\/i><\/a>? Starting a<\/i> crowdfunding campaign<\/i><\/a>? Want to grow your business<\/i> with Instagram?<\/i><\/a> StartupSmart School can help.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Online cafe startup Beat the Q Posse Group has closed an oversubscribed $5 million funding round following a merger at<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60488,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42172"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42172"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42172\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}